Today, the United States imposed financial sanctions and visa restrictions on four Ugandan individuals for their involvement in activities that victimized young children in a corrupt adoption scheme. Ugandan judges Moses Mukiibi and Wilson Musalu Musene, and Ugandan lawyer Dorah Mirembe and her associate Patrick Ecobu, participated in a scam whereby young children were removed from their families and placed into a corrupt adoption network, aided by the facilitation of Ugandan officials. The U.S. government designated these four individuals pursuant to Executive Order 13818, which builds upon and implements the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act. The Department of State also designated Mukiibi and Musene under Section 7031(c) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2020 (Div. G, P.L. 116-94) due to their involvement in significant corruption. irembe, with the assistance of Ecobu, facilitated bribes to Ugandan judges and other Ugandan government officials to fraudulently procure adoption cases, either directly or through an interlocutor. Mirembe paid bribes to get cases steered to judges Mukiibi and Musene. Mukiibi and Musene are current or former government officials who have, directly or indirectly, engaged in corruption.
On December 23, 2016, the President signed the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (Pub. L. 114-328, Title XII, Subtitle F) (the “Act”) into law. The Act authorized the President to impose targeted sanctions on any foreign person the President determines is, among other things, responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, or a government official, or a senior associate of such an official, responsible for, or complicit in, ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, acts of significant corruption.
On December 20, 2017, the President, invoking the authority of, inter alia, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701-1706) (IEEPA), issued Executive Order 13818 (82 FR 60839, December 26, 2017) (E.O. 13818), effective at 12:01 a.m. eastern standard time on December 21, 2017.
In E.O. 13818, the President determined that serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States and declared a national emergency to deal with that threat.
OFAC is issuing the Global Magnitsky Sanctions Regulations, 31 CFR part 583 (the “Regulations”), to implement the Act and E.O. 13818, pursuant to authorities delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury in E.O. 13818. A copy of E.O. 13818 appears in appendix A to this part.
